Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Collection of abolitionist newspapers [Decimalized .01-.59]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC08875 Author/Creator: Place Written: s.l. Type: Newspaper Date: 1836-1861 Pagination: 59 newspapers Order a Copy

A collection of early anti-slavery and abolitionist newspapers, including issues of The Emancipator, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and the Liberator. Some of the papers are edited by William Lloyd Garrison; others by Edmund Quincy & James Russell Lowell - all three important names in the abolitionist movement. Newspapers are dated from 1836-1850, a range that captures the beginnings and the development of the abolitionist movement in the U.S. They deal with important topics such as the treatment of slavery in the Southern press; remarks by Congressmen, Senators, and Presidents on the slavery issue; the fugitive slave act; and reports of anti-slavery meetings and conferences. They present cogent arguments against slavery.

These newspapers were edited (and thus generated) by a number of people, including William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator), Edmund Quincy and James Russell Lowell (National Anti-Slavery Standard) and A.A. Phelps (The Emancipator). While Quincy is less known, William Lloyd Garrison and James Russell Lowell were two of the leading abolitionist figures in their time. Quincy, though less prominent a figure, was an active participant in and follower of Garrisonian ideas on the abolition of slavery and attended abolitionist meetings on a regular basis.
Additionally, previous owners of these papers (whose signature is on some papers) include John Russell & [I.] Stearns. All Stearns's papers are signed with first name initialled. If "G." Stearns, possibly George Luther Stearns, a major figure in the abolitionist movement. Stearns knew John Brown and was even suspected of financing some of his operations and was married to Mary Elizabeth Preston, the niece of feminist abolitionist figure Lydia Maria Child.

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